… is the birthday of the man with the best answer to the age-old question, “What are you going to do with a degree in history?” If you’re Fess Parker, after you get that degree at the University of Texas, you play Davy Crockett in the Disney TV classic, then Daniel Boone in the television series, move to Santa Barbara and run a vineyard and resort.
And turn 85 today.
Actor Robert Culp is 79 today. He was Bill Cosby’s sidekick (or Cosby was his) in the first TV series to feature an African-American, I Spy.
Julie Newmar, Catwoman on the Batman TV series, is 76.
Frank Gifford is 79 today. Kathie Lee Gifford is 56 today.
One-time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress, Lesley Ann Warren is 63 today.
Oscar-winner James Cameron is 55. Cameron won, of course, for Titanic — writer, director, best picture.
Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone is 51.
Best actress Oscar nominee Angela Bassett is 51 today too.
Supporting actor Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton is 49.
Steve Carrell is 46.
Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks is 37. Originally Emily Erwin (Robison is her married name), she and her sister Martie (now Maguire) founded the group with two other classmates. The other two left and the group added Natalie Maines as the lead singer in 1995.
Football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was born on this date in 1862. Stagg, Skull and Bones at Yale, was on the first All-America team ever (1889). He coached most famously at the University of Chicago, 1892-1932. Stagg developed the man-in-motion and the lateral pass — and developed basketball as a five man game. He is in both the college football and basketball halls of fame.
Elvis Presley died 32 years ago today, he was 42. Margaret Mitchell died 60 years ago today, at age 48. Babe Ruth died 61 years ago today, he was 53. Robert Johnson died 71 years ago today, he was 27.
The first issue of Sports Illustrated was published 55 years ago.
To me Julie Newmar will always be ‘April Conquest’ the laundromat owner on The Monkees.